Off the Record
by Web of Obsidian
Summary: The doctor. The government. The policeman. The assistant. Sherlock recorded everything that happened on the rooftop. The four he left behind listen to it. Post "The Reichenbach Fall".


It was a small group that gathered in the office of Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade, huddled around a small table. Rain lashed against the windows outside, the door to the room was shut. Everyone was staring at a small, rectangular object in the center of the desk.

"Molly found it..." Lestrade said hoarsely before clearing his throat. His voice was marginally stronger when he spoke again. "Molly found it in Sherlock's pocket, in the morgue. It was recording the... the whole time."

Mycroft leaned heavily on his umbrella. "Have you listened to it yet?"

"No."

"And... you want everyone to hear it? Now?" John's voice was impossibly quiet, blank, numb. Instead of an umbrella he was leaning on his cane.

"Yes. And... if you want, we'll release it to the press. But I thought you should hear it first, before anything else."

John slowly eased himself into a chair. Molly shakily sat, but Mycroft ignored the chair set out for him. Lestrade reached across the desk and hit the _PLAY _button on the recorder.

The Bee Gees' _Stayin' Alive_ was the first thing they heard, and Mycroft blinked.

"Moriarty's ringtone," John muttered dully.

The sound of a door shutting, the music growing louder as Sherlock presumably moved closer to where Moriarty stood.

"_Ah. Here we are at last – you and me, Sherlock, and our problem. The final problem.__Staying alive! It's so boring, isn't it?" _The music abruptly stopped. _"It's just... staying. All my life I've been searching for distractions. You were the best distraction and now I don't even have __you__. Because I've beaten you."_

Crunching footsteps on gravel as Sherlock paced, broken slightly as Moriarty spoke before continuing evenly.

"_And you know what? In the end it was easy."_ The footsteps stopped. _"It was easy. Now I've got to go back to playing with the ordinary people. And it turns out __you're__ ordinary just like all of them. Ah, well."_

Footsteps, but not Sherlock's.

"_Did you almost start to wonder if I was real? Did I nearly get you?"_

"_Richard Brook."_

John flinched at the familiar voice of his late friend.

"_Nobody seems to get the joke, but you do."_

"_Of course."_

"_Atta boy."_

"_Rich Brook in German is Reichen Bach – the case that made my name."_

Lestrade's hands clenched into fists, and he looked away.

"_Just tryin' to have some fun." _Moriarty\ adopted a fake American accent for a moment. _"Good," _he commented an instant later in his normal, sing-song voice, referring to something they couldn't see nor hear. _"You got that too."_

"_Beats like digits," _Sherlock replied. _"Every beat is a one, every rest is a zero. Binary code. That's why all those assassins tried to save my life. It was hidden on me; hidden inside my head. A few simple lines of computer code that can break into any system."_

"_I told all my clients: 'last one to Sherlock is a sissy'."_

"_Yes, but now that's it's up here, I can use it to alter all the records. I can kill Rich Brook and bring back Jim Moriarty."_ A long pause in which nobody spoke.

"_No, no, no, no, no." _Moriarty sounded almost... disappointed? _"This is too easy. This is __too easy_. _There __is__ no key, DOOFUS!"_

The last word was screamed, so close to Sherlock that the recorder speakers crackled slightly at the noise, and John flinched again.

"_Those digits are meaningless. They're utterly meaningless. You don't really think a couple lines of computer are gonna crash the world around our ears? I'm disappointed." _Faint footsteps, and Moriarty spoke again, his voice now in a slow drawl. _"I'm disappointed in you, ordinary Sherlock."_

"_But the rhythm-"_

Sherlock's voice was genuinely confused.

"_Partita No. One," _Moriarty scoffed. _"Thank you, Johann Sebastian Bach!"_

"_But then how did-"_ Moriarty steamrolled over Sherlock's feeble questions.

"_Then how did I break into the Bank, to the Tower, to the Prison? Daylight robbery! All it takes is some willing participants. I knew you'd fall for it. That's your weakness – you always want everything to be clever. Now, shall we finish the game? One final act. Glad you chose a tall building – nice way to do it."_

Still bewildered, Sherlock stammered out a question. _"Do it? Do- do what?" _There was a long pause, and then Sherlock's voice was blank and resigned. _"Yes, of course. My suicide."_

"_Genius detective proved to be a fraud," _Moriarty announced before his tone switched back to mocking again._ "I read it in the paper, so it __must__ be true. Fairytales." _The sound of footsteps, two sets of them, as both Moriarty and Sherlock began to walk. _"And pretty grim ones too."_

Lestrade had been staring at the recorder blankly the entire time. Rich Brook. Reichen Bach. Half the crimes Sherlock had solved were cold cases brought by Lestrade to keep him from getting too bored and burning down London. Half of _those_ had occurred when Sherlock was a mere child, or decades before. He couldn't have possibly arranged those. _How had they been so blind?_

John's mind had switched off. He heard the words, they registered, but-

_Sherlock_.

Mycroft exhaled shakily before sitting down, gripping the handle of his umbrella so tightly his knuckles were white and his nails had dug half-crescents into the polished wood.

Molly said nothing.

"_I can still prove that you created a false identity," _Sherlock stated.

"_Oh, just kill yourself," _Moriarty groaned in exasperation. _"It's a lot less effort." _The pacing of footsteps, most likely Sherlock's. _"Go on. For me. Pleeeeeeeeeease?"_ His voice shifted into a high-pitched squeal. The footsteps ceased abruptly, there was the rustle of fabric and a faint scuffle. While they couldn't see what was happening, the reports said that there had been signs of a struggle, however brief. Moriarty's suit was wrinkled, as though someone had grabbed him by the collar, and the gravel on the rooftop was scattered.

"_You're insane_,_"_ Sherlock snarled, his breathing short. A pause.

"_...You're just getting that now?"_

Another scuffle, and Moriarty laughed.

"_Okay, let me give you a little extra incentive." _His voice turned savage. _"Your friends will die if you don't."_

"_John," _Sherlock breathed.

John's head snapped up to stare at the recorder.

"_Not just John. Everyone."_

"_...Mrs. Hudson."_

Mycroft managed a few more shaky breaths. _Caring is a disadvantage. Caring is a-_

"_Everyone__."_

"_...Lestrade."_

Lestrade blinked once. _Him_? Why... _him?_

"_Three bullets," _Moriarty said. _"Three gunmen. Three victims. There's no stopping them now. … Unless my people see you jump."_

John's breath hitched in his throat, Lestrade was actually shaking. Mycroft's eyes had slipped shut, and he let his head fall back to rest on the chair.

"_You can have me arrested. You can torture me, you can do anything you like with me, but nothing's gonna prevent them from pulling the trigger. Your only three friends in the world will die... unless..."_

"_...unless I kill myself," _Sherlock finished. _"Complete your story."_

"_You've gotta admit that's sexier." _The smirk was practically audible.

"_...And I die in disgrace."_ Moriarty snorted.

"_Of __course__. That's the __point__ of this. Oh, you've got an audience now. Off you pop, go on."_

Slow footsteps. Sherlock's breathing was shaky.

"_I __told__ you how this ends. Your death is the only think that's gonna call off the killers. __I'm__ certainly not going to do it."_

"_Would you give me... one moment. Please. One moment of privacy?" _His voice broke halfway through. _"Please?"_

"_Of course."_

For a long few moments the only noise was Sherlock's heavy breathing, and the weight of tension hung heavily in the air. No one was meeting anybody's eyes.

Then there was laughter. Sherlock's laughter, going from quiet chuckling to full-blown cackling triumph.

"_What?"_ Moriarty sounded furious. _"What is it? What did I miss?!"_

The crunch of gravel as Sherlock walked to Moriarty.

"_You're__ not going to do it," _he repeated. _"So the killers __can__ be called off, then. There's a recall code or a word or a number. I don't have to die..."_ Now it was Sherlock's turn to mock, his voice sing-song as he spoke. _"...if I've got you."_

"_Oh!"_ Moriarty laughed. _"You think you can __make__ me stop the order? You think __you__ can make me do that?"_

"_Yes. And so do you." _Moriarty scoffed.

"_Sherlock, your big brother and all the King's horses couldn't make me do a thing I didn't want to."_

Mycroft flinched.

"_Yes, but I'm not my brother," _Sherlock snarled. _"I am __you__, prepared to do anything; prepared to burn; prepared to do what ordinary people won't do. You want me to shake hands with you in hell? I won't disappoint."_

A long pause, but Moriarty's soft chuckle broke the silence. _"Nah. You __talk__ big. Nah. You're ordinary. You're ordinary – you're on the side of the angels."_

"_Oh, I may be on the side of the angels..."_ Lestrade shuddered slightly at Sherlock's voice, darker and more threatening than he had ever heard. _"...but don't ever think for __one second__ that I am one of them."_

"_No, you're not."_

Everyone in the room waited with bated breath. Most of them had their eyes closed; only John kept his eyes on the recorder as though it would make it play out faster.

"_I see. You're not __ordinary_._ No. You're me."_ Moriarty gave a delighted laugh. _"You're __me! __Thank__ you! Sherlock Holmes... Thank you. __Bless__ you. As long as I'm alive... you can save your friends, you've got a way out."_

"What went wrong?" Lestrade whispered, but then, rapidly, the situation turned. Moriarty spoke, and his voice sounded calm, almost normal.

"_Well, good luck with that."_

There was a click, Sherlock cried out and his shuffling footsteps were barely heard as a single gunshot rang out. A thud. Moriarty was dead. Sherlock's breathing grew agitated quickly, and John could almost picture his frantic, manic movements as he desperately tried to think of _something_-

"_Hello?"_

It was John's voice. The man in question let out a strangled moan and dropped his head into his hands.

"I can't-" he choked out, then grabbed his cane and hobbled out of the room, door slamming shut behind him.

The recording kept playing as recordings were meant to do, although the group remained motionless and shell-shocked.

"_Turn around and walk back the way you came, now."_

"_No, I'm coming in."_

"_Just do as I ask!"_ Sherlock's voice was panicked, strained. _"Please."_

"_Where?"_ John, bewildered, confused, oblivious.

"_Stop there."_

"_Sherlock?"_

"_Okay, look up. I'm on the rooftop."_

"_Oh, God."_

"_I... I- I can't come down, so we'll... we'll just have to do it like this."_

"_What's going on?"_

"_An apology. It's all true."_

"_Wh- what?"_

"_Everything they said about me. I invented Moriarty."_

"_Why are you saying this?"_

Sherlock's voice broke.

"_I'm a fake."_

"_Sherlock-"_

"_The newspapers were right all along. I want you to tell Lestrade. I want you to tell Mrs. Hudson, and Molly. Tell anyone who will listen to you... that I created Moriarty for my own purposes."_

"_Okay- shut up. Sherlock, shut up. The first time we met- the first time we met, you knew all about my sister, right?"_

"_Nobody could be that clever."_

"_You could."_

Sherlock gave a weak chuckle.

"_I researched you," _he sniffed. _"Before we met, I discovered everything that I could to impress you. ...It's a trick. Just a magic trick."_

"_No. All right- stop it now."_

"_No! Stay __exactly__ where you are! Don't move. Keep your eyes fixed on me. Please, will you do this for me?"_

"_Do what?"_

"_This phone call... it's- it's my note. That's what people do, isn't it? Leave a note?"_

"_Leave a note when?"_

"_Goodbye, John."_

"_No, don't-"_

There was the sound of rushing wing, whipping fabric, then a sickening crunch.

The recording went to static, then stopped.

The room was silent for a long time then.

* * *

"Did you give it to them?" the man asked quietly, standing half in the shadows which hung over him like a curtain. The woman nodded, holding out the small recording device.

"Yes," she said quietly. The man took the recorder with a gloved hand.

"And?"

"John left when you started talking to him in the recording," she said softly. "I've never seen Lestrade cry before. Mycroft... he didn't cry, but... you could see it in his eyes. He looked so sad." The man didn't reply. "Sherlock, are you sure-"

"_Yes_, Molly!" Sherlock cut in sharply. "I need to do this. Moriarty's empire _must_ fall before I can come back, or _everyone_ will still be in danger."

He left without another word, and Molly pulled her coat tightly around her as it began to rain.

"You were a great man," she whispered to nobody in particular. "Anyone with half a brain could see that. But now... now you're a good one."


End file.
